The First Day
Luz’s POV
It was still dark outside when Luz’s alarm clock assaulted her ears. She’d never been one to wake up early by any means and the storm clouds outside that made the world darker only reassured her that it was way too freaking early to be up.
Luz groaned as she dragged herself out from beneath her covers and started getting ready for school, throwing on a dark blue sweatshirt and tossing her notebooks and laptop into a backpack. She made her breakfast as quietly as possible to avoid waking up her mom; as usual Luz had waited up for her last night but at least the nurse didn’t need to be up for a few more hours and Luz would be damned if she interrupted her before then.
After choking down a bowl of cereal, Luz grabbed her bike from the garage and faced the storm in front of her. Rain was coming down in sheets, making it so that the street was barely visible even with the street lights still shining down. For a good minute she just stood there, trying to build up the willpower to actually step outside. She could just ditch today all together and go back to bed, the first day was all introductions anyway so it’s not like she’d miss anything important. But on the other hand, if she did that her mom would definitely give her that ‘not mad just disappointed look’ and Luz hated the idea of that a lot more than she hated the idea of school.
Luz sighed and started pedaling, hoping that the plastic bag she’d wrapped around her backpack would be enough to keep the water out.
Amity’s POV
“How can water not be wet?”
“It has the ability to make things wet but water in and of itself can’t be wet.”
Amity stared out the window as her siblings bickered from the front seat of the car. She couldn’t even remember which argument belonged which twin, not that it mattered. She was a bit more focused on the raindrops racing each other down the window and going over which teachers she’d been instructed to talk to about extra credit in her head, but soon enough her mind drifted back to The Boiling Isles. Over the last few days she’d played a few more times, meeting Salix400 and Ca3sarsGh0st in game for the first time and thankfully Gus was okay with her joining the party despite their... complicated history.
Both times, Lazura had come online at around 8:00pm and even though Amity could tell from their first session that she was really good at the game, seeing her compared to Willow and Gus only confirmed it. She had a completely different play style than them, running and jumping around enemies in perfect time with their attacks, setting traps that were aimed exactly for weaknesses and seeming to never get hit herself. She didn’t do a lot of damage with her arrows but she knew how to keep the enemies’ attention so that Amity, Willow, and Gus had openings to hit, or to lead them into the traps that she set with her glyphs, as she called them, and that always did a lot of damage.
Amity smiled as she thought about Lazura and the way she joked about everything and answered all of Amity’s questions, even the more stupid ones, with sincerity. She looked forward to playing with the ranger more tonight after she finished her homework. Hopefully the girl would be online by then, apparently it was her first day of school as well.
A sudden flash of lightning interrupted her thought process and made her notice that they were pulling into the school’s parking lot.
“Alright, Mittens,” Emira said as Amity grabbed her bag from the floor of the car. “Our last class lets out at 4:00 so we’ll be back to pick you up after that.
“Just be careful not to get too much liquid that is apparently not wet on you before getting inside.” Edric said with a pointed look at Emira.
Amity decided to leave her siblings - who had somehow managed to progress to their second year of college - at that and ran from the car to the entrance of the school. It was downpouring and despite Amity’s best efforts her purple blouse still got doused. She checked the time on her phone, she still had a few more minutes until the first bell, maybe she could dry off in the bathroom really quickly.
Her first class of the day was honors precalculus with Mr. Bump and by the time she got to it her shirt was still a little darker in color than normal but thankfully she’d managed to get rid of most of the water with some paper towels. She’d just managed to squeeze into her seat next to Boscha, who was sipping on an iced coffee from a pretty expensive chain shop, when the bell finally rang. Amity and Boscha were sitting in the back row like usual, Boscha always liked it there because it made it easier for the teachers to ignore it when the star, now captain, of the girls soccer team wanted to talk and pass notes. Of course, Boscha’s seat also had the bonus of being directly behind Willow’s with only one empty desk separating them.
“How’d that loser even get into this class?” Boscha snickered leaning in closer to Amity even though she’d definitely said it loud enough for the black haired girl to hear. Amity saw Willow’s shoulders slump ever so slightly, they hadn’t looked at each other as Amity had walked into class as both of them agreed that it would be better to just avoid each other in public. There was, however, one more part to that agreement.
As Boscha started to discreetly load up a spitball to fire in Willow’s direction, Amity reached out a hand and gently lowered the straw. “Hey, just leave Willow alone okay?”
Boscha gave Amity a look of disbelief, “What? Why?”
“Just do it.” Amity wasn’t looking at her, just staring at the board as Bump went over expectations for the course. Amity knew that Boscha knew the tone she was using and that she also knew not to question it. Boscha gave her one last look of confusion and disappointment before jamming the straw into her pocket and slumping back into her chair with her arms crossed.
About ten minutes into class the door opens and all eyes are drawn to the kid walking through the front of the classroom with her clothes completely soaked with water. Amity had never seen this girl before so she was definitely new. She was wearing jeans, a blue sweatshirt with the hood drawn up and a pair of purple converse sneakers, one of which appeared to be held together with duct tape and a dream. Her skin was dark and slick from rainwater and her brown eyes had a look that said she’d rather be anywhere else. The girl left puddles where her feet touched the ground as she trudged over to Mr. Bump, holding out a pink late slip for him to take.
“I do hope you don’t make a habit of coming into my classroom late, Ms… Noceda.” He said glancing over the paper. “There’s a bit of leeway because it’s the first day but for the most part, tarties are not well tolerated here at Hexside. You may take a seat now...” he looked down at the paper again, “Luz.”
“I’ll try not to make a habit of it.” The girl, Luz, mumbled as she made her way to the one open desk left, the one right in front of Boscha. There was a squishing sound as Luz sat in her soaked clothes and she looked like she would give anything for the floor to open up and swallow her whole. Boscha stifled her laughter very poorly as water dripped from the seat in front of her.
“Ms. Noceda,” Bump called from the front of the room. “Hats and hoods are also not well tolerated at Hexside.”
“Sorry,” Luz sighed as she pulled her hood down revealing equally drenched short brown hair that looked like it had been cut in front of her bathroom mirror. Unfortunately for her, as her hood came down, a small trickle of water spilled out onto Boscha’s desk behind her.
The dyed red-head immediately glared daggers at the oblivious new girl girl and tapped on her shoulder hard enough to make her flinch. “Hey,” Boscha hissed through gritted teeth, “You ruined my notes.”
Luz looked down at the paper on the Boscha’s desk. Amity could have pointed out that the paper was blank anyway but she’d already bothered Boscha enough with asking her to leave Willow alone. She didn’t want to push her too far and just watched as Luz grabbed a notebook from her somehow not soaked backpack and tore a new piece of paper for Boscha before turning back around in her seat.
Amity could have stopped what happened next. She could have told Boscha off. She could have warned Luz. Hell she could have just shot Boscha a look and the girl would have halted in her tracks. But she didn’t. Instead Amity stared straight ahead as Boscha took her iced coffee, removed the lid, and dumped it down the neck of the girl in front of her.
Luz sucked in through her teeth, stiffening at the temperature change as fresh freezing liquid seeped down her back.
“What’s going on back there?” Mr. Bump called out, his attention drawn to the noise.
“Oh, I just spilled my drink by accident.” Boscha said, leaning closer to the girl in front of her with a sickly sweet smile on her face. “It shouldn’t happen again.”
Amity watched out of the corner of her eye as the new girl clamped her fists in her lap, her arms shaking from the strain. Her jaw was clenched, eyes squeezed shut, and Amity hoped that, for her sake, she had the insight not to say anything. Luz continued to hold that position after Bump accepted Boscha’s explanation and moved on. For a solid few seconds Luz was as still as a statue, then, slowly she let out the breath she had been holding and relaxed her muscles.
Smart girl, Amity thought, refocusing her attention to the front of the room. However as her eyes shifted over she made eye contact with Willow who gave her a pointed look, glancing her eyes ever so slightly in Luz’s direction expectantly.
Amity just shrugged. She’d stopped Boscha from picking on Willow, what more did she want from her? She wasn’t Boscha’s keeper so it wasn’t really any of her business what the girl did. Besides, even if she did step in, Boscha would just find someone else to bother, at least this way it was just some random new girl that no one cared about.
Willow shook her head as she turned back towards Mr. Bump. Amity had a feeling she was going to hear more about this later.